This invention relates to apparatus for forming a shaped laminate having a rigid member such as a bilayer safety glazing and more particularly to a mold for use in such apparatus.
Commonly assigned, copending, allowed, U.S. application Ser. No. 07/617,734, filed Nov. 26, 1990, entitled "Method Of Forming A Bilayer Glazing Panel", now U.S. Pat. No. 5,082,515 discloses apparatus for forming a bilayer glazing panel, the latter being a shaped laminate which includes at least one rigid member such as a glass or equivalent layer. In brief, according to such application functional planar plastic layers are drawn or stretched against a previously bent glass panel lying in a mold and then the plastic layer abutting the glass is strongly bonded to the glass by increasing the temperature of and pressure on the layered combination to form the shaped laminate. A thermoforming assembly as part of such apparatus is used in the drawing step which includes a stiffly-resilient member (identified as 48 in FIG. 3 of such application) supporting the glass which is meant to resiliently deform under the influence of the elevated pressure to avoid cracking or fracturing the fragile glass. Such member reverts to its unstressed shape when the pressure is released and performs identically during the next forming cycle. A new support member for the glass must be fabricated for each significant variation in curvature of the rigid glass member. It would be desirable to avoid such multiple support members to accommodate differently shaped laminate configurations.